Kratt



Dec. 26, 1961 w. KRATT 3,014,397

TOY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT Filed Sept. 17, 1959 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG.2

INVENTOR WILLIAM KRATT ATTORNEY Dec. 26, 1961 w. KRATT 3,014,397

TOY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT Filed Sept. 17, 1959 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR.

WILLIAM KRATT BY 6%? fm ATTORNEY Dec. 26, 1961 w. KRATT 3,014,397

TOY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT Filed Sept. 17, 1959 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 F G 7 INVENTOR.

WILLIAM KRATT ATTORNEY United States Patent Ofitice 3,014,397 Patented Dec. 26, 1961 3,014,397 TOY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT William Kratt, 40f) Hugenot St., Union, NJ. Filed Sept. 17, 1959, Ser. No. 840,628 1 Claim. (Cl. 84-404,)

This invention relates to toy musical instruments, and more particularly concerns musicalinstruments which include tone bars and hammers for striking the same.

In conventional toy musical instruments which include tone bars and hammers for striking the tone bars; the hammers include key portions arranged in a keyboard for manual depression to actuate the selected hammers. Such arrangement requires a mastery of the keyboard and the ability to select keys in accordance with musical notation or through a tone sensitive ear.

Obviously, with such conventional musical instruments the player must be of a minimal age or musical ability commensurate with the requirements for playing such instruments. Accordingly, one object of this invention A is to provide an improved musical instrument of the character described which is adapted to be played by those having no knowledge of musical notation and unable to play by ear; the player being able to reproduce simple, well known melodies- Another object of this invention is to provide an improved musical instrument of the character described wherein the hammer actuating members take the form of elongated elements which maybe depressed at any point in the length thereof to actuate the associated hammer, thereby simplifying the arrangement of hammer actuating elements and the operation thereof for children of an age who could not readily operate a conventional keyboard.

Another object of this invention is to provide an improved musical device of the character described, wherein the elongated hammer actuating elementsare arranged in a manner to allow the successive notes of a given melody to be played on the device by manually depressing the corresponding elements; the arrangement of such elements lending itself to a substantially progressive movement in one direction along the length of said elements during the successive depression of the elements, thereby largely avoiding reversal of direction during the playing of the device, whereby such device may be played by children of an age normally .deemed incapable of playing musical instruments to reproduce recognizable melodies. A further object of this invention is to provide a musical instrument of the character described, wherein the elon gated hammer actuating elements are disposed in parallel, longitudinally extending arrangement; replaceable sheets carrying simple notation related to a selected melody be ing adapted to be disposed beneath said elements, the notation on the sheets constituting visual indication to the player as to which elements are to be depressed and their order of depression, whereby a simple melody is played on the instrument.

Other objects of this invention will in part be obvious and in part hereinafter pointed out.

in the drawings, FIG. 1 is a top plan view of the device embodying the invention;

PEG. 2 is a side elevational view thereof;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged top plan view thereof with a casing portion and additional parts removed to expose the tone bars and associated hammer means;

FIG. 4 is a transverse sectional view taken on the line 4 -4 of FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a longitudinal sectional view taken on the line 5--5 of FIG. 3;

FIG-6 is a transverse sectional view taken on the line 6-6 of FIG. 3; and

FIG. 7 is a transverse sectional view taken on the line 7-7 of FIG. 3.

Referring in detail to the drawings, and particularly to FIGS. 1-3, 10 designates a toy musical instrument embodying the invention. The same comprises a raised rectangular platform 11 having depending side walls 12, 13 and end walls 14, 15. The platform may be molded of suitable plastic material with a fairly thin wall section.

At the right hand end of platform 11, looking at FIG. 3, there are located tone bars 16, of curved form and in parallel arrangement and parallel to side walls 12, 13. Upstanding from platform 11 are spaced support members 17, 18 extending generally transversely of the platform, for mounting tone bars 16 in raised relation to the platform. Strips 19 of soft, resilient foam on the upper edges of members 17, 13, loosely support the tone bars 16.

Means is provided for preventing longitudinal or transverse movement of the tone bars 16, While allowing the same to have limited vertical movement when they are struck to emit musical notes. To this end, an open frame 29 of molded plastic is disposed over tone bars 16. Frame 2%) is fixed in a horizontal position immediately above bars 16 by a series of plastic rods 21 upstanding from platform 11 and adjacent support 18. Each of said rods 21 passes through an enlarged opening 22 in a tone bar 16 and then through an opening 23 in a channel shaped side member 24 of frame 20. The upper portions of rods 21 are cemented to frame member 24 at the openings 23 therein. I

The other channel shaped side member 25 of frame 20 has a series of plastic studs 26 depending from the underside thereof which pass through enlarged openings 27 in tone bars 16. A support plate 28 upstanding from platform 11 is afiixed at its upper end to frame member 25. It will be apparent that tone bars 16 seated on foam strips 19, have limited vertical movement on studs 26 and rods 21, when said bars are struck in the manner hereinafter described.

The means for striking bars 16 comprises a series of hammer members 29 respectively associated with bars 16. The hammer members 29 molded of suitable plastic, comprise a rectangular body portion 30 with an upturned portion 31 at one end thereof. A cylindrical hammer element 32 is cemented to upturned portion 31. A pivot member 33'extends transversely of body portion 30 adjacent the other end thereof and is cemented thereto. Pivot member 33 includes projecting end portions 34.

Hammer members 29 further include a tail portion 35 projecting from the end portion adjacent pivot member 33; said tail portion 35 having a top surface raised above the top surface of body portion 39. The hammer membars 29 are disposed longitudinally on platform 11, extending through openings 36 in support member 17, as indicated in FIG. 4. The hammer elements 32 are located in opposed relation to the underside of, the respec tive tone bars 16 at a mid-portion thereof.

The hammer members 29 are pivotally mounted, in a normally tilted position, as indicated in FIG. 5, by means of pairs of parallel cars 37, 38 upstanding from platform 11; said ears being formed with aligned open end slots 39 to receive projecting pivot portions 34. Each of the cars 38 is formed with an additional open end slot 40 spaced from slot 39 therein, for the purpose hereinafter appearing.

Means is provided for selectively actuating hammer members 29 to strike the corresponding tone bars 16. To this end, a pair of parallel, thin molded plastic strips 41, 42 are fixed in transverse, upstanding relation to platform 11; strip 41 being located adjacent end wall 14 and strip small diameter rods 45. Rods 45 have short, right angle arm portions 46, 47 at the opposite ends thereof.

As indicated in PEG. 3, each rod 45 when seated in the slotted strips 41, '42, has its arm 47 disposed between a pair of corresponding cars 37, 38, with the end of said arm loosely received in slot 40 of ear 3%. The juncture of arm 47 and rod 4-5 lies in contact with tail portion 35 of hammer member 29. The rods d are supported by soft, compressible, resilient foam pads 4-3 located adjacent strip 41, and similar pads 49 located between strip 42 and cars 37, 38. The arms 46 of rods are held in normally horizontal position by post members 56 upstanding from platform 11.

The arms 46 of rods 4-5 are enclosed by means of a thin walled casing member 51 having a depending flange 52 on the inner side thereof; flange 52 being formed with slots 53 which mate with slots '43 in strip 41. Studs 54 depend from the underside of top wall 55 of casing 51 and are in alignment with post members 50, to limit the vertical movement of arms 46 when rods 45 are depressed. Casing 51 is held in place by screws 56 threaded into members 57 upstanding from platform 11.

The tone bars 16 are enclosed by a domed casing 56 having an opening 59 in the top wall thereof; said opening being covered with a mesh fabric 69. Casing 8 is removably secured in place by latch members 61 extending upwardly from platform end wall and latch members 62 extending upwardly from strip 42. Casing 58 has a strip member 63 secured thereto in a horizontal position to overlie the top edges of ems 37, 38 and thereby prevent arms 47 from moving out of slots 40 when rods '45 are depressed.

It is understood, that any one of rods 45 may be slightly depressed at any point in the length thereof, to cause the tail portion 35 of the associated hammer member 29 to be depressed and thereby pivot said hammer member to strike the associated tone bar 16 by means of hammer element 32. The slots 43, 44 in strips 41, 42 have a depth permitting the slight movement of rods 45 when the same are depressed; and pads 48, 49 restore the rods to their normal horizontal position after being depressed.

Means is provided for visually indicating which rods 45 are to be depressed and in which order, so as to thereby play a succession of selected musical notes emitted from corresponding tone bars 16, and thus reproduce simple, well known melodies. To this end, a rectangular sheet A imprinted with predetermined indicia, may be removably mounted on platform 11 beneath rods '45 and held in proper position by strips 41, 42; a longitudinal strip 65 disposed adjacent platform wall 13; and longitudinally spaced strips 66 disposed adjacent platform wall 12, leaving a central opening 67 between opposed ends of strips 66.

Opening 67 facilitates the insertion and removal of indicia sheets A, which sheets are imprinted with disclike markings 68 in a manner to be in alignment with rods 45.

Markings 68 provide visual means for indicating which rods 4-5 are to be depressed to produce the corresponding sequence of musical notes from the tone bars lid. It will be noted, that with a reasonable length in actuating rods 55, markings 68 may be started at the extreme left hand end of sheet A and imprinted in positions progressively advancing toward the right hand end thereof.

Thus, markings 68 may be so arranged as to aviod the necessity of depressing rods 45 in retracted positions, except for a few terminal notes. Such arrangement greatly simplifies the playing of instlnmcnt 10 even by a very young child, and the exact sequence of the markings 68' is indicated by the line markings 69 which successively interconnect markings 68 in proper succession.

The sheet A shown in FIG. 1, by way of example, carries the markings 68 for the successive notes reproducing the well known melody Three Blind Mice. Obviously, the reverse side of sheet A may be imprinted with markings 68, 69 for other simple melodies familiar to children of varying ages and particularly the very young children.

The platform 11 may carry a thin felt strip 39a for receiving the underside of hammer members 29 after the same have been pivoted to their striking positions and return to their normal tilted positions as shown in FIG. 5.

As various changes might be made in the embodiment of the invention herein shown, without departing from the spirit thereof, it is understood that all matter herein shown or described is illustrative and not limiting except as set forth in the appended claim.

Having thus disclosed my invention, I claim as new and desire to protect by Letters Patent:

A toy musical device comprising a platform, a plurality of spaced, loosely mounted tone bars on said platform, a hammer member pivotally mounted on said platform for each tone bar for striking the same upon pivoted movement thereof, means for directly actuating said hammer members comprising a plurality of elongated members on said platform, each elongated member comprising a longitudinal portion and short horizontal arm portions extending from each end of said longitudinal portion transversely thereof, means on said platform for supporting thefree ends of the arm portions of each elongated member, resilient means for supporting intermediate portions of the longitudinal pontion of each elongated member, each hammer member having a portion thereof in abutting relation to the corner portion of an associated elongated member at one end thereof, whereby the longitudinal portion of any elongated member may be depressed at any point in the length thereof to rock said elongated member and to actuate the hammer member associated therewith.

Klein Dec. 9, 1941 Bancroft July 5, 1949 

